What is it about possessing nothing, giving up everything or having all taken away, considered so pious in spiritual circles? Jesus and the Buddha are often cited as examples of this liberating condition — the former having lived as a homeless teacher and the latter abdicating royalty to live in rags in the forest for six years, seeking and finding enlightenment.
Janis Joplin sang “Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose” and it’s become the anthem for the counterculture ever since because it seems like such a wow thing to say. In any case, how’s that so different from a British expat in Australia selling his entire life — including material possessions, job, friendships and money — to the highest bidder for £192,200 because there were simply too many reminders in those things after his divorce?
E Raymond Rock, an ordained Theravada monk and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center in the US, goes one step further. He says it’s only when life is taken away for a brief moment, when we escape momentarily from existence and touch that reality that we cannot speak about, only then is true happiness possible.
Obviously, this must mean that true happiness — whatever that embraces — is not possible when life as we know it happens to be around and we are infused with it. Or that if does happen to people who have not escaped even momentarily, they must be deluding themselves and others should never take their word for it.
It’s like saying one must only go to a designated place of worship to pray. Or to some quiet, meditative and relaxed area where the mind can be at peace. But never while sitting on the potty in the toilet. Who makes these rules? And who has the right to pass subsequent judgement? Surely, not someone enlightened because he or she would see the Buddha nature in everybody and everything at all times everywhere.
Besides “reminders” is what our lives are surrounded by. We don’t exist in a vacuum of no time; every object, act and event makes the past continually flow away from our grasp. Now we can either close our eyes and heads and pretend they’re not there or hope to be delivered from them by something else, a happenstance or a providential outside agency. Or we could take the middle way and have the whole world of earthly possessions at our doorstep so long as we can think of happiness as just another word for everything left to lose.
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